CHAPTER 3
The pressure in my chest is growing stronger. Getting shot didn’t hurt this much.
They kidnapped Chiara. Someone took her right from under my nose, and I don’t understand how it could’ve happened.
Or maybe I do.
I was an idiot. I should’ve upped all the protection without worrying about what the neighbors might think. We should’ve turned this house into a fortress. I should’ve known Gennaro and Matteo would figure it out anyway.
But there’s nothing I can do now. It’s too late to change anything. Someone has Chiara. My men are looking everywhere for her, but I fear it’s all going to be for nothing.
Gennaro and Matteo aren’t idiots. They’ll keep her somewhere safe, and they’ll try to get me to do whatever they want.
And right now, I’d do anything. I’d agree to anything just to have her back. What’s the point of having all the money and power when I don’t have her? She’s not by my side, and I feel like half of me is missing.
All of this should disturb me. The old Adriano would’ve scoffed and thought how pathetic all of this was.
But I’m not that Adriano anymore. My priorities have changed. I swallow hard as I send a message to Gennaro and Matteo. It has to be them behind all this. I don’t know why they haven’t contacted me yet with their demands, because I’m sure they have them.
No one else would’ve dared to come anywhere near me. No one else could’ve known I’d been shot. It has to be Matteo or Gennaro, or both of them together.
What the fuck are they waiting for? Why haven’t they called me yet? Every second that passes is pure agony because I don’t know if my wife is all right. I don’t think I’ve ever been in so much distress over something. It all feels new to me, and it’s terrible.
I’ll kill them all. I’ll kill them all for making me feel like this. Chiara must be terrified. After everything that happened to her because of me, she has to go through this too. Gennaro and Matteo have to pay for it. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I have to.
If they’ve done something to Chiara...
I tightly shut my eyes and rub my forehead. The mere thought of something happening to her while they were kidnapping her makes me both nauseated and furious.
She has to be alive. They have no reason to kill her. Without her, they have nothing. They know I would burn the whole city to the ground.
I open my eyes because there’s noise in the hallway.
“We got something!” Rocco yells as he bursts through the door.
“What is it?” I lift my gaze to him.
“We have this.” He hands me a tablet.
I frown at the screen. Grainy images of a man who resembles Matteo, with a woman. A woman whose face I can’t see but who’s wearing the same clothes as Chiara when I last saw her.
Chiara!
“Where is this?” I jump to my feet.
“Graveyard.” Rocco’s face is serious.
Dread fills my stomach. What? No.
No!
“We have to go there! Now!” I throw the tablet onto the bed and grab my gun off the nightstand.
There’s no time to waste.
“I already sent some—” Rocco says, but I bury my hand in his shirt and yank him toward the door with me.
“Let’s go!” I shout.
If he thinks I’m going to sit here and wait until someone else rescues Chiara, he’s wrong. I’m the one who should be there.
If Matteo wants something, he’ll wait for me. But why choose the graveyard? What if my wife is already dead?
My heart skips a beat. No, I can’t think about it. Matteo must’ve chosen that place because he was sure I’d get the footage from nearby cameras. He knows I’m watching everything I can. It was just an easy way for him to send me a message.
“But you’re not ready—” Rocco starts.
“I’m fine!” I snap.
I’ll be fine when my wife is with me where she belongs.
Unharmed.
I race between the graves because I can see my men standing in a group. A body lies on the ground next to one of the graves. My chest constricts.
“Chiara!” I yell.
Someone grabs me. “Sir! There’s a bomb!”
“What?” I stop and stare at the guy.
“There’s a bomb on the body. If you go any closer, it could get triggered.”
The body. I swallow hard as I take a look. Chiara’s clothes. Dark brown hair just like hers. She’s facedown on the ground.
I can’t see.
I can’t tell if it’s her.
My mind screams that it is.
My heart doesn’t want it to be true.
Maybe she’s just unconscious. But why did Matteo put a bomb on her? I can see the wires tangled in her clothes. Does he think she’ll wake up and trigger the bomb? And I’ll watch her blow to pieces?
I take a step toward her without thinking, but Rocco catches my arm.
“You can’t,” he says.
“Is she breathing?” I hate how scared my voice sounds.
“I don’t know. We’re too far away.”
“Then someone should go closer.”
“Not until the right team shows up. We’re dealing with a bomb,” Rocco says, as if I don’t know all that already.
But it’s hard to think because it feels like wading through quicksand. My heart pounds like crazy in my chest.
“Is that another camera?” I ask as I spot the light catching on something glass-like.
“Probably,” Rocco says. “I’ll have another team search the area.”
Matteo. That psychotic son of a bitch.
What the fuck is wrong with him? Has he finally gone off the rails and he’s just doing... whatever the fuck this is. I don’t even know. Does he want something or not?
The team that’s supposed to defuse the bomb shows up after what feels like an eternity.
“Can you see her face?” I ask.
“Let’s not distract them. One wrong move, and the thing could go off.”
I stare at Rocco because I don’t understand how he can be so calm. I guess I was like this once, but now it’s so damn annoying.
“It’s a wig,” someone yells.
“What?” I squint.
“The woman is wearing a wig.”
“It’s not her,” I breathe. “It’s not her!”
I almost pull Rocco into a hug, but there’s no time to celebrate. If the woman isn’t Chiara, then where is she?
Where the fuck is my wife and why is Matteo playing games with me? He already knows I care about her, so what does he want? How can he be so cruel? I’ve never done anything to him. Not on purpose anyway. I went to juvie for him.
And this is what he does to me?
What the fuck?
Once the bomb is dealt with and taken away, my men move the body.
Definitely dead, and probably not for a short time either. Matteo must’ve used something to slow down the decomposition.
“Find out who this is,” I say to Rocco.
“I think I know. She looks like that doctor. Her name is Laura or something.”
“Right.” Her face is all disfigured, but it could be her now that the wig is gone.
Matteo had made sure to hide her hands. Actually, he’d cut them off.
But why would he kill a doctor? Probably to get information on me, and when that didn’t work, he killed her. I don’t know why he thought she’d know something. It’s weird.
He was looking for me, and he got to the hospital too late. Maybe he was mad he couldn’t finish me off and she didn’t know where I went, so he took out his anger on her.
She shouldn’t have suffered like this. Not because of Matteo and me.
“I guess he wanted me to take care of the body for him and tell her family.” I sigh.
And that psycho still has my wife. What will his sick mind come up with next? Will he torture her? Kill her?
I grit my teeth.
Why doesn’t he make his demands already?
I’d give it all to him. I’d give whatever he wants in exchange for Chiara. Isn’t that perfectly obvious to him by now?
“Chiara will be fine.” Rocco places his hand on my shoulder. “Matteo clearly wants something, and he knows that if he hurts her, you’ll never give him anything. You have to be patient.”
Patient? I don’t know how.
It fucking hurts.
Every breath. Every second without her.
It all fucking hurts too much.
But Rocco is right.
“We can’t stop looking for her. Now we know it’s him who’s behind all this. We know how he operates. We’ll find him,” I say.
Is Gennaro behind this too? Is he using Chiara and me as some kind of test for Matteo? Or is Matteo all on his own in this?
I don’t know, but I’m going to find out because that’s an important piece of info. Matteo might be doing this without his father’s permission to try to impress him. I’d even be willing to accept Gennaro’s help at this point. Make any kind of deal.
Anything for my wife.